1969 Brabham BT26A

I took this photograph on a visit to the Donington Park Museum in May 1986.

It's a 1969 Brahham BT26A, chassis BT26/4, and the book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' says this about the it:

'Formula 1 racing in 1969 was dominated by Jackie Stewart’s battles with Jochen Rindt, but the Belgian driver Jacky Ickx turned the tables on them both with his works Brabham BT26As to win the German and Canadian GPs, and the non-Championship Oulton Park Gold Cup race in England. Ron Tauranac’s long-standing allegiance to multi-tubular spaceframe chassis construction saw its ultimate expression in his BT26 cars, and with the experimental Matra MS84 four-wheel drive vehicle they were the last tube-framed Grand Prix cars to be built. Stressed-skin monocoque chassis became the rule in 1970 when a change in regulations demanded metal cladding for the rubber bag fuel tanks, and only then did the Australian engineer follow his Indy lead and build a full monocoque Grand Prix car. The first BT26s appeared in 1968, using smaller gauge chassis tubes than hitherto in Brabham practice, and with stressed steel skinning to stiffen the frame. They were intended for four-cam versions of the Repco V8 engines - made in Australia - which had brought Brabham the World Championship titles for two successive seasons. Unfortunately the ‘quad-cam’ Repco was a disastrous failure, and Jack Brabham and Jochen Rindt had a wretched season, yielding only two third places and one fifth from their few finishes. For 1969 Brabham and Tauranac decided to run Cosworth V8 engines in the BT26 chassis, forming the ‘A’ variant. Two of the three existing BT26 frames were modified by the team and, first time out in South Africa, Jack was fastest in practice, 0.2 seconds faster than Stewart’s Matra. He won the International Trophy race Silverstone, coasting over the line out of fuel, but later in the season he crashed there during testing and put himself out of racing until the Italian GP. This left Jacky Ickx alone in the works BT26A during mid-season when he gave some fine performances. In Germany he qualified BT26-4 on pole position, 1.3 seconds faster than Stewart, and as the Scot was slowed by gearbox trouble in the race so the Belgian romped home to win at a record 108.43mph average speed, setting a 7 minute 43.8 second record lap at 110.13mph. This shattered the existing figures by a full 11.5 seconds! Ickx used BT26-3 to win the Canadian GP and the Oulton Park Gold Cup, while Brabham himself drove BT26-4 to second place in Canada, fourth in the USA and third in Mexico. The car was then bought by Collection founder Tom Wheatcroft and raced for him in the Tasman series by Derek Bell. After an abortive outing in the 1970 Belgian GP, it was retired to the Collection, still in perfect condition.'